Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow Placement Interview Questions

• Q1. Talk about 3 highlights from your CV.
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Client is a tyre manufacturer in Mid-west US. Market is growing for automobiles and client wants to expand capacity. Two options are available with the client, either expand in the US or tie up with a Chinese manufacturer. Analyze the options and recommend the solution.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: To understand more about the company, where does it sell tyres and how many different types of tyre does it sell?

I: Its market is in the US itself and has only one single type of tyre.

C: Is the client the leading manufacturer in the market?

I: Yes, it is the leading player across US.

C: Is there any constraint on the capacity with either of the options?

I: No, we can cater to the increased demand with either of them.

C: I would now like to delve deeper into the available options. First, I would like to proceed with expansion in the US market. I would break down the different costs and then look at each of them. Setup of plant (land and equipment), procurement of raw materials, manufacturing operations, distribution network. Should I go ahead with these heads or am I missing something?

I: Sure, go ahead.

C: Are we planning to setup a new unit or acquire an existing unit in the mid-west? If we plan to set up a new unit, what will be the cost of land and equipment?

I: We want to setup a new unit. The government is supporting local manufacturers and we will be able to purchase land at subsidized rates with a tax holiday for 5 years. Machines will be of better technology and will also be subsidized.

C: Understood, there is a clear benefit in terms of acquiring land and purchasing equipment. Now I would like to know more about the procurement and manufacturing costs. Will we be procuring from same suppliers? Will there be any reduction in costs of manufacturing like manpower due to better automation?

I: Yes, cost of raw materials would be same and labor costs will go down due to advancement in technology.

C: Moving on, how will our distribution costs change if we open a new plant? Will the overall logistics cost increase?

I: No, so there is a mother warehouse in mid-west US from where we deliver across the country.

C: Right. So, I have covered the costs for new set up in US and would now like to move on to the tie up with Chinese player.

I: Sure, go ahead.

C: Since the player is already manufacturing tyres, I would like to understand what the nature of the deal and the overall cost will be associated with tyre. This would include margins of the Chinese player, import duty and shipping costs.

I: Right, so the margin of the player is 10% over the price of the tyre, import duty is 20% and shipping cost is additional 5%.

C: So, assuming base price of manufacturing to be same, it is 1.35x of current price, but China has lower manufacturing rates compared to others and thus, the cost would be lower.

I: What is your final recommendation for the client?

C: From the data we have analyzed, it seems that with the subsidy of the US government, the new setup seems to be a more beneficial option and would recommend setting up own plant.

A new hotel has opened up in a metro city in India. What would be the number of water bottles consumed annually in the hotel?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

I: Let us do a quick guesstimate. A new hotel has opened up in a metro city in India. What would be the number of water bottles consumed annually in the hotel?

C: What kind of hotel is this and where is it located in the city?

I: It is a regular business hotel with rooms, restaurant and a business center located in the city center.

C: I would like to break the calculation into 3 parts, the calculation for rooms, the restaurant, and the business center. To start with the rooms, I would calculate it using the formula, Rooms*average occupancy of rooms*no. of people in a room*bottles consumed per person per day*365.

Is it correct or am I missing anything?

I: Let us talk about factors affecting occupancy of rooms and consumption per person.

C: The occupancy would depend on the type of rooms, day of the week, the seasonality (March might have higher no. of customers compared to October which is a festive month). The consumption of bottles would depend on size of bottles.

I: Correct, the bottle is a 500ml bottle. Let us move to restaurant now.

C: For calculating no. of bottles for the restaurant, I will use, working hours of restaurant, split it into peak and lean, multiplied by avg no. of people visiting in an hour*bottles used per person* %people using bottled water.

I: This is alright, could you think of another approach to calculate people visiting the restaurant?

C: We can take a supply side approach b calculating customers through number of tables. Tables*per table seating*%occupancy*bottles per person.

I: How will you break down occupancy?

C: The occupancy would be influenced by factors including meal of the day and average time spent per person in the restaurant.

I: Right, I think we can end here. Thank you.

• Q1. Tell me about yourself.
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• Q2. Why do you want to pursue consulting?
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Client is US based archeological site management company. They are entering India and the first site they want to evaluate is Victoria memorial Kolkata. Every year 1 cr. people visit the Victoria memorial. Currently the entry ticket is 1Rs/person and annual operational cost is 150 Cr. Shall we bid for the property or not for 30-year lease period?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Tell me more about the Victoria memorial property.

I: a. Garden b. Lake c. Museum. Garden is 40 acre and has walking and jogging paths. Lake has boating facility. Museum is 3 stories and contains Victorian era artifacts.

C: What is our objective?

I: Primarily Profits. Secondarily, enter Indian market.

C: I would use the following structure for the case. Analyze the investment financially (Revenue streams, Profits, Investments, exit barriers) and operationally (Autonomy, Risks involved).

I: Let us start with revenue stream analysis. Assume lake is not in our control we can only generate revenue from Museum and Garden. How will we price the tickets?

C: What type of people come to visit the Victoria memorial?

I: There are domestic (80%) and foreign tourists (20%).

C: For garden to roam around 40 acre one will spend 1 hour maximum. We can use the value-based approach to price its ticket. Proxies for garden visit can be having a cup of tea, watching movie, visiting a mall or just time-value of 1 hour. Minimum one will be willing to pay is Rs 10 (for cup of tea).

I: Okay. What about the Museum?

C: We can do value based or competitor-based analysis to price the ticket.

I: Okay, let us assume ticket price for domestic tourist is 10 Rs. How much shall we take from Foreigners?

C: We can take a fixed percentage from their expense. Or we can see how much they are spending on similar attractions (like Taj Mahal, Gateway of India).

I: Okay. Let us assume we take 500 Rs from foreigner. Now do you think we can make profits.

C: Let us see how many people will visit garden and museum. Garden is more suitable for generic purpose; hence 75% people will visit it. Museums require specific interest in art and history, hence only 25% people will visit them.

I: Okay, calculate the revenue generated.

C: With the assumed information we will make around 110Cr from the tourist tickets.

I: We need at least 40 Cr more. That means 40 Rs per customer. How will you generate it?

C: We can look into food and catering services, tour guides, photography, transport services. The revenue generation might not be 40 Rs per person it can be more from foreigner and less from domestic tourists.

I: Okay. So, we shall make the bid? What about operational aspect?

C: Financially it looks profitable, as over the year we can look into increasing the tourist volume and reducing costs. We should look at risk factors such as what will be the response of locals staying near Victoria memorial when we implement the tickets, as they might protest to that.

I: Okay, that is all from my side.

Give revenue increasing solutions only to a paints company CEO.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

I: Give me only revenue increasing recommendation for a paints company.

C: I would like to know more about the company, its product and competition.

I: It is India's second largest paints company, and it is growing very fast. They have already done their cost analysis and they are competitive. They make decorative paints. The largest player is 2 times their size.

C: Can I get to know what is their product mix?

I: They make 3 types of paints. Luxury, Premium and Mass. Luxury is for high-end customer and is price competitive with other companies and has 70% margin. Premium is for middle class customer and has lower price than luxury and has 60% margin. Mass is for general purpose and is price competitive with other companies and low price and has 45% margin.

C: Can you tell me about the company’s value chain? And to whom do we sell it to?

I: The paints company manufactures, then send it to depot from where it goes to retailers. The company has around 50K retailers. From there we sell it to contractors and painters.

C: Structure of the case. We can increase profit margins by increasing the price, changing the product mix and by product innovation. We cannot increase sales by volume because that will lead to increase in cost also. To increase the price, we must look at the price elasticity of each product (in our case premium product's price can be increased little bit to match its competitions price). We can promote more of luxury products because they have more margin. We can try to come up with new types of paints for wider range of application and newer technologies.

I: Okay now let us have a look at cost side also once. Where can we try to reduce cost?

C: We can divide it into raw material, manufacturing, logistics/transportation, and retailer’s margin.

I: Look into the raw material cost as it accounts for 70% of the total cost.

C: We can break it down into Commercial cost + procurement cost + accounting cost.

I: Give me suggestion to lower down the raw material cost.

C: We can make contracts with multiple raw material suppliers to reduce cost. Improve logistical efficiency. Automate accounting processes through inventory management software.

• Q1. Tell me about yourself.
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• Q2. Why consulting?
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You have been hired as an advisor to the Climate Resilience Officer (CRO), Mumbai. Your first task is to create a vision for the next couple of years for the CRO. How will you go about this?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Could you please explain to me the exact mandate of the CRO? Is this in line with the BMC?

I: You can say that the CRO is an officer of the BMC. The CRO is responsible on two fronts. Firstly, he is responsible for building climate resilience which means preparing the city of Mumbai to absorb stresses imposed by climate change (rising sea levels, increased temperatures). Secondly, he is responsible for climate adaptability. The weather patterns are constantly changing and the CRO is responsible for building any infrastructure that may be necessary for coping with changing weather patterns. You can imagine building ridges along the sea banks as in The Netherlands.

C: Understood. For the next couple of years, I think we can prioritize the action keeping in mind the following two objectives:

a. Saving lives of the population, particularly the vulnerable segment living near the sea. Focus should also be on a large section of the population living in slums like Dharavi who do not have the means to support rehabilitation in case need be.

b. Minimizing disruptions when creating climate resilience infrastructure in the city for corporations and general population as well.

I: Alright. How would you categorize your response to meet these objectives?

C: I would like to break the response into two aspects, a couple of initiatives which are fairly long-term and can be started now, such as pushing corporations to build sustainable infrastructure and moving to renewable energy. We can look at introducing legislations in this regard over the next couple of years. In the short-term, we can create ridges along the sea banks to prevent any immediate mishap that may happen due to rising sea levels. We can also look at rehabilitation options for slum dwellers in the short-term.

I: Okay. What is the kind of resources that you would need to implement these points? Think in terms of competencies.

C: Maybe technical and budgetary support. Technical staff would include scientists, technology staff to monitor climate patterns, knowledge transfer from international locations. Budgetary support can be sourced from government funds, international agencies like World Bank, UN, International Solar Alliance etc.

Your client is a fuel retail company. The revenues have not been growing since the last 3 years. The client has hired BCG to look at revenue generating options outside the fuel and energy space. How should we go about this?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Could you please elaborate on the scale of business of our client here? Where do they operate?

I: Sure, the client is a major fuel retailer in India. It distributes petrol, diesel and CNG through its network of 13,000 pumps spread across the country. It is among the top 3-4 players in the market.

C: Understood. How does the client segregate these 13,000 pumps? By geography, products supplied, any other way?

I: By geography. You can assume that the pumps are segregated into three categories: urban, rural and highways. All three segments are facing this issue. The products supplied across these pumps are fairly standard.

C: How is the industry fairing at this time? Are the competitors also facing this issue?

I: Yes, so what has happened is that a number of competitors have entered the fuel distribution ecosystem in the country in the last 5 years. Some of them have adopted deep discounting policies as well. As a result, the overall revenue growth has become stagnant. The client, thus, wants to diversify its business.

C: I see. One last question on the nature of business of our client, they are not into crude oil extraction?

I: No, they just pick oil up from the refineries and use their distribution network to sell fuel.

C: Understood. Since fuel is heavily government regulated, making changes in the price is something we cannot look at. However, we can explore promotional tie-ups with financial institutions for discounts. We can look at a combination of making modifications in the existing product portfolio and the geographies we are catering to. Maybe tap into new geographies and cater to B2B segments.

I: Makes sense. But for now, let us focus on non-fuel segment. Can you list down a few factors and maybe come up with a model to decide which businesses to enter?

C: Sure, on a preliminary level, I would look at factors like revenue/profit maximization, ease of business expansion, competition in allied sectors etc. All these factors would differ in their importance depending on the geography.

I: Alright. Can you list down a couple of ideas by which the client can increase his revenues?

C: In the urban areas, we can look at monetizing options by selling a couple of fuel stations which do not contribute enough to our revenues. Urban stations will command a higher land price. We can also look at integrating with allied services such as vehicle repairs, retail stores and shopping centers wherever feasible. In the rural areas, the customer segments will naturally be different so we will have to look at revenue generating options for rural population. We can leverage our distribution networks and create rural mandis and service centers for trucks and tractors. For highways, the main customers would be trucking and logistics companies. We can look at creating motels for them. Large retail outlets can also be opened in busy routes. Service centers can also be opened for vehicles.

I: Makes sense. In addition to this, the client is also looking at tapping into other allied services like insurance for vehicles and drivers.

Background- Auctus Advisors is different from other typical consulting firms in the sense that it follows an uncertainty-based approach to solving problems. It involves a decision tree structure with below steps:

a, Breaking down the problem into uncertainties involved and decisions to be taken.

b, Work with associated cost of the outcomes.

c, Choose/recommend the branch with least cost/highest profit etc.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

Case 1:

The interviewer had a quick look at my resume and identified that I was an athlete during undergrad. He then went on asking about the events I do, my best performance and the Indian national record in those events.

I- Ajay, let us assume you have a relative whose child is also an athlete like you. Knowing that you chose academics over sports as your career choice, he reached out to you for suggestions on how he should go about his child’s career plans. How will you help him?

C- Can I have a minute to gather my thoughts around this?

I- Sure.

C- I would need some more information around the situation. Can I ask some clarifying questions?

• In what class is the child currently studying in? (Class 8)

• What is the gender of the child? (Male)

• Does the child have any siblings? (Yes, a younger sister)

• What is the financial status of the family?

• Typical middle-class family from Andhra Pradesh

• No family assets and properties

• How good is he in academics? (Does fairly well – within top 10 in the class)

• How good is he in sports? (Already mentioned in the case statement)

C- Let me start with the Pros and Cons of each of the career options.

I- Do you usually conduct the pros and cons analysis while taking decisions?

C- Not always. But it helps to have a qualitative view before going ahead with the decision-making situation.

There is one important question I failed to ask earlier. What is the final objective of this career choice decision making?

I - What can be the objective?

C- : I can think of the following:

• Higher Income (and properties)

• Societal status

• Self-satisfaction

Some of these might be difficult to quantify but these are broadly what I can think of.

I- Sounds good. Let’s consider all those factors you just listed

C- Now that we have a broader view, let me start by identifying the uncertainties and decisions involved. Assuming that the decision has to be taken as soon as possible, we have 2 uncertainties and 2 decisions.

Uncertainties:

• Whether or not he performs well in academics in future.

• Whether or not he performs well in sports in future.

Decisions:

Should the parent consider sports as a career options. If yes, should it be given more preference? In this case, we have two alternatives

• Join him in a sports academy with lesser focus on education.

• Work on education and send to sports coaching everyday.

• Focus more on education with coaching only on weekends.

I- Looks good. What would the decision tree look like?

C- First comes the decision 1 with two branches. If the parent doesn’t choose to consider sports as an option, there is nothing much left.

However, if he chooses to consider it, the branch will further have 3 branches (each to the respective options listed above). For each of these 3 branches, there will be uncertainty 1 and uncertainty 2. In the end, there will be outcomes of each of the branches.

Ex: Parent chooses to consider sports and joins him in a sports academy. What is the probability that he will do well in sports and do well in academics?

We will then assign probability to each of the branch and calculate the expected value of the outcomes. The decision can be based on these values.

Case 2: I have a piece of land with me. What should I do with it? How would you approach this problem?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C- Sure. I would start with asking the objective of using this land.

Following are the few I can think of

• Make a lump sum money immediately

• Generate constant stream of cash flows

• Invest in the long term

Based on the duration before which you would expect the money to start flowing in, we can choose one of the above. For each of the above options, following can be done:

• Sell the land.

• Lease the land to some other corporate entities.

• Start a business. Can be one among below.

• Hotels.

• Amusement parks .

• Malls

I- Good. Can you summarize this?

C- Sure. The following things should be considered for making a decision.

•Mode of making money (Lump sum, Stream of cash flows)

•Time until which you can wait for money to start coming in (Long vs short term)

•Type of business to invest in (competitor analysis, SWOT)

I- You mentioned cash flows. Are you aware of cash flow statement? What does it tell about? How do you prepare a cash flow statement from if I give you income statement and balance sheet?

C- Explained and solved a small numerical which the interviewer gave with reasons behind why some line item is subtracted and why others are added to get the final net cash flow.

Walk me through your resume. You have only 3 minutes to do so.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C- Sure sir.

I- What is it that you are proud of, in your resume? What section do you want me to focus on, other than academics?

C- It would be sports sir.

I- Okay. Let us solve a problem. Tell me the probability of you making it to the Indian athletics team that represents Olympics? I am more interested in your approach than the final answer.

C- Sure. In order for me to be in the Indian team, I should pass through multiple stages – District, State and National. I will calculate the probability at each level and multiply it to get the final probability.

At the district level, considering a state like UP, there would be ~200 participants per event. Assuming that I am interested in only one event and only top 3 participants make it to the state level, the probability that I am in those is 3/200.

At the state level, there would be ~80 districts, each with 3 participants per the event. Top 3 here would be selected for national level. The probability is 3/240.

Same goes with national level. 28 states with 3 participants each and top 3 would be selected for the Indian team.

I- : You have taken around 15 minutes to solve this. If I give you only 3 minutes, how would you go about it?

C- Our population is 130 crores. I will take the percentage of population that plays sports (let us say ~15%).

Within those 15%, I will consider the percentage of them who play athletics. Then I will boil down to the event I am taking part in. Assuming that top 3 would be in Indian team, the answer would be 3/(above number)

I- The margin of error would be high in this approach. Can you think of another way?

C- : I will rank the current active athletes that take part in my event based on their best performance. I will have a particular rank among them, say 1800. I will then calculate the probability of me beating those above me and improve my rank to top 3. This would give a rough estimate of the required probability.

I- Fine. Let’s solve a puzzle. There is a 100 floor building and you have two eggs with you. Consider a hypothetical situation where the eggs would break only if you drop it from a particular floor or any floor above that. How many trials would you need to find out that floor? How do you minimize the number of trials?

C- The easiest way would be to start from ground floor and start dropping the egg from each floor. In the worst case, this would take 99 trials to find the
required floor.

The next way is to use binary search. Divide the building into two halves. Drop the egg from 50th floor. If it breaks, start from floor 1 to find out the required floor. If it doesn’t break, start from 51st floor and go up until the required floor. In the worst case, this would take 49 trials.

The other way is to break down the building into a set of 10 floors instead of two halves and drop the first egg from 10th, 20th, 30th, ….90th floor. Based
on the floor at which it breaks, start from the bottom. For example, if the first egg breaks at 30th floor, start dropping the second egg from 21st floor onwards. This approach would take around 19 trials in the worst case.

I- Good. You have considered 10 floors to come up with 19 trials. I believe the trials could still be reduced if you consider another size of the band of floors (say 11 floors, 12 floors etc.,). Using which size of the floors would you get minimum trials and how do you calculate it?

I- So, what are your thoughts about the current economic slowdown? Should we be concerned about it? Why is there a slowdown in the first place?

Suggest few steps to be taken to revive the
economy?

• Q1. What kind of products did you build and work on?
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Consider any app that you use frequently, what, according to you, are some of the major pain-points and what would you have done differently?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: Okay, let’s take LinkedIn as the app for our discussion.

I touched upon the basic and advanced features that have been introduced to the LinkedIn app, comparison with respect to its previous versions and after its acquisition by Microsoft.

I outlined the metrics that I as a Product Manager would want to keep a track of, while parallelly going through the user’s perspective and how the features suffice their requirements.

The focus was towards achieving a balance between improving user experience, creating user delight as well as maintaining the user engagement metrics on the platform.

I: Since you have worked and built fintech products, lets discuss about an initiative that I am working on, I am currently working on building a digital bank from the ground up in India.

(This was not a case discussion and the conversation revolved around the different aspects of the bank and how a digital setup would look like. The partner mentioned the different initiatives he had planned for setting up the bank).

Your client is a refrigerator manufacturer, who is recently facing a decline in their profits.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: I would like to understand more about the client. (I asked the initial clarifying questions including base of operations, manufacturing facilities, value chain, product mix, market position, current industry scenario etc.)

The decline in profits can be an outcome of either an increase in costs or a decline in revenues or both, should I start from any of these parts?

I: There is neither a decline in revenues nor an increase in costs.

C: Okay, understood. Please allow me a minute to gather my thoughts.

C: I would want to understand the profit margins across the types of refrigerators we have and the market demand for the same. Also, how do they compare with the industry’s trend?

I: We have higher margins on double-door refrigerators, but they currently constitute 20% of our portfolio. For our competitors, about 40% of their sales come from double-door refrigerators.

C: We can try to optimize our product portfolio so as to maximize our profit margins.

• Q1. Tell me something about yourself.
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Our client is a home appliance manufacturer. For their refrigerator vertical they want to improve their profit margin which is currently around 13-15% (this is lower than their competitors).
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: Confirmed the problem statement, applied the CPCC framework.

I: Client has been established in India for a very long time. The client operates throughout the value chain. There are 3 major market players which retain roughly 70-80% of the market share, our client is one of them. Refrigerators can be classified into 3 broad
categories:

(a) Single Door

(b) Double Door

(c) Premium.

The client also manufactures spare parts for refrigerators. Growth has not been a problem for the client.

C: To improve revenue, I laid down 3 options that the company can explore:

(1) Number of Retailers we are dealing with

(2) Average Quantity we are selling per retailer

(3) Price.

I: The client is doing well in all these 3 dimensions. What else can we do to improve the margin?

C: We can analyze the cost side and identify areas where we can reduce costs to improve the overall margin.

I: Costs cannot be reduced further, anything else you can think of?

C: We can look at the other revenue streams such as spare parts and installation services.

I: Let’s focus on refrigerators.

C: Confirmed if I can explore the competitive landscape and further questioned the difference between the client and competitor’s product offerings and price.

I: Go ahead.

C: Asked the profit margin per category for our client and the competitors.

I: The client was earning a profit margin of 10%, 14% and 19% respectively for single door, double door and premium respectively. Competitors were earning 10%, 15% and 20% for these categories.

C: Asked if there was a difference in the sales mix? If the competitor was selling more of one category than our client?

I: Yes, the competitor is selling more Premium refrigerators which is driving up their overall margin.

The client is a global tools manufacturer and has two product lines- hand tools (hammers, pliers etc.) and power tools (drill machines etc.) with limited differentiation. They launched their hand tools business in India 3 years back with 100+ dealers across the country but have only been able to achieve 1.5% market share even after conducting numerous marketing initiatives. The global management has asked them to get into the top 3 in 18 months or exit the market. How should the client proceed?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: Reiterated the problem statement and the given information. I’d like to understand more about the competitive landscape. How many players operate in the market and their respective market shares?

I: The top 3 players in the branded tools market hold 60% of the market. Player 1 :35%, Player 2: 15% and Player 3: 10%.

C: Does the client have any budgetary constraints for this expansion in India?

I: No, the client doesn't have any budgetary constraints.

C: The client can grow in India through Organic or Inorganic routes. Under organic routes as you mentioned earlier the client has tested a lot of marketing initiatives and has struck enough deals with retailers across the country. Therefore, we can explore pricing. We can dilute our profit margin and decrease the price of the product, but it might lead to a price war.

I: The company wants to maintain its current pricing strategy.

C: Then we should consider inorganic options which include JVs and M&As. Since we plan on staying here long term, I don't see JV as viable. So, I think we should look at M&A.

I: Great. Whom would you merge with or acquire and why?

C: Since our aim is top 3. I would look at the firms on rank 2 and 3.

I: Why not rank 1?

C: With 35% market share, they seem to be way ahead of the other competition and striking a deal with them might be difficult as compared to the rank 2 or 3 players who'd be more interested in associating with a global giant.

I: After we merge, would you want to launch a separate brand for the recently acquired company or sell it under the client’s name?

C: We can enjoy the brand recognition the company we acquired possesses and further improve our market share. Associating the client’s name with an Indian Manufacturer will further improve the client’s sale as well. Therefore, I recommend co-branding/ joint branding.

• Q1. Tell me about yourself.
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Shown a screenshare containing information pertaining to three product lines of a telecom company: their current market share, projected market in different segments, growth rate, EBITDA and market share ranking. I was asked about the current state of the company, and future action plans.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

I: I’ll be sharing my screen and showing you some information regarding a telecom company. They have three product lines, with details mentioned in the sheet.

I need your help in determining the current state of this company, and any future action plans.

C: The whole interview was very conversational, with the interviewer giving cues based on the different heads mentioned on his screen: revenue and COGS were calculated to find the current state of the company for each product line.

Based on the individual analysis of each product line, the fate of the company was decided.

Your client is a public sector bank who is facing a high ATM fee payout. They require your help.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

I: Smiled and mentioned we’ll directly be jumping into the case. Asked if I was ready, then gave the problem statement: Your client is a public sector bank who is facing a high ATM fee payout, they require your help.

C: Re-iterated to confirm the problem statement. Mentioned that I’d be needing the interviewer’s input to fully understand the issue. Asked doubts regarding fee payout.

I: Explained that when customers of other banks withdraw money from our bank’s ATM we receive pay in fee. Similarly, the vice versa situation results in a payout fee.

C: Scoped further with CPCC to understand the quantum of the payout fee and since when we had been facing this issue.

I: We have been facing this issue for the last 2-3 years, and the quantum of loss has been Rs. 200 Crores.

C: Asked where all our ATMs are located, who our customers are and whether our competitors are also facing a similar issue.

I: Mentioned that we operate pan India with 30 licenses, don’t have a segmentation difference in our consumer base and with respect to competition it’s a zero-sum game:so, if we have a high payout fee, another competitor is benefitting with a high pay in fee.

C: Having gathered the necessary information I asked for some time to structure the factors and broke them down into the number of customers, transactions per customer, frequency of transactions and ATMs present per customer.

I: Sure, let’s start with the customers. What all could be the issues they are facing?

C: Further broke the factors down into geographic locations of the ATMS: availability and time to reach, wait time, safety, ATM operational hours, convenience and ease of use experience.

I: Explained that there is no issue with safety, then asked to explore the other factors. He mentioned that out bank currently has 10,000 ATMs and asked if they are enough?

C: Mentioned that the 10,000 ATMs number stand alone is not enough to come to a satisfactory conclusion. Asked about our market share, and benchmark against competitors.

I: Good. Assume there are 3 lakh ATMs in India, and our bank holds a 5% consumer base, being the 3rd largest bank in India. The largest bank holds 12% consumer base with 25,000 ATMs and 2nd largest bank holds 8% consumer base with 8,000 ATMs.

C: Comparing with the top 1st and 2nd largest banks, the number of ATMs our bank has is at the benchmark level, however; considering there are 3 lakh ATMs in India: we should ideally operate around 15,000 ATMs in India to cater to the 5% consumer base and try to increase this number to receive a higher pay in fee.

I: Yes, you are correct. We need to operationalize more ATMs across India to cater to our own customers and increase our pay-in fee. This is one issue we are facing. What could the other issues be?

C: Traced the customer journey to confirm there were no issues in the need to withdraw cash, and no affordability concerns. ATM accessibility was an already discussed issue. Hence, we then moved to availability and customer experience. Discussed factors like operational hours, availability of cash, queue time, ATM machine working condition.

I: Asked to expand on cash availability and machine working condition.

C: Asked how frequently the cash was re-filled, especially in areas where consumer density was high, and if the frequency of refill and volume of cash filled was sufficient.

I: Mentioned that this was the second issue we were facing, as our re-fill rate was not up to the mark. Then he asked me to scope further to figure out the last issue.

C: Focused on the ATM machine’s working conditions: hardware and software related issues. Broke hardware issue down to: machine not working, card reader broken, cash dispenser not rendering cash, and software issues into server side: client-side issues, internet issues, fund unavailability, language/software issues.

I: Yes, you are going in the right direction. Why could the machine not be working?

C: Listed factors like functional issues with a new machine just installed, old machines that were broken, damaged machines due to improper usage, spoilage due to water/weather/external factors, lack of electricity to run the machine, etc.

I: Yes, the third issue we are facing is that our ATMs located in rural areas don’t have adequate power supply hence many of our ATMs are non-operational. Thank you, Parkhi, for your time, it was a pleasure interacting with you. All the best!

• Q1. Tell me something about yourself.
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• Q2. In the past few interviews, you have had, what was one thing you lacked?
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• Q3. Walk me through your CV.
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• Q4. What did you learn at ZS?
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• Q5. How would you apply your learnings gained from ZS in a retail bank?
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• Q6. Questions on internship.
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Your client is a scientist who has created a teleporter. Now, she wants to monetize her invention. Tell her 5 things to consider doing the same.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

(It was more of an idea generation case and was completely led by the interviewee).

C: Asked a few scoping questions and then proceeded to tell the points I’d consider.

1. Safety precautions (Invention would be dangerous in the wrong hands)

2. Target Group: Government/Military, not open to all due to high risk

3. Pricing strategy

4. GTM strategy

5. Patent

Your client owns a pathology lab in southern region of the country. He wants to increase his business by 4-5x times. What would you do?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

It was more of an idea generation case and was completely led by the interviewee.

C: Covered the following things post scoping questions

1. Digital transformation

2. Promotions

3. Anshoff matrix

4. Backward/Forward integration

5. M&A

• Q1. Tell me about yourself.
  Add Answer

The client is a hotel company, setting up a new hotel in a metro town. Estimate the number of water bottles consumed in the hotel in a month. (Pre-COVID-19)
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: What kind of hotel is it and how many rooms are we looking at. What is the size of the bottle we are talking about and does the hotel also have halls given for corporate and other events?

I: It is a 100-room hotel, mostly for business use. Looking at 500ml bottles and yes, the hotel has halls rented out for events.

C: I would like to estimate room demand, restaurant demand and corporate event demand separately.

For rooms = No of rooms*Occupancy rate per day*No of days (30)*People per room*bottles per person per day.

For restaurants = Operation hours of restaurant*no of tables*seating capacity per table*occupancy of tables by the various operational hours*No of bottles per person (also accounted for avg time spent per person per table).

The business center/ hall part will be fairly similar to the restaurant part. So, I would focus on factors which would affect the booking of these corporate halls. Some of the factors were location of the hotel (if closer to a business park or the airport), the package offered by the hotel, the service provided and the reputation, seasonality (for instance year ends would have more bookings).

You have been hired by a textile firm to create a post COVID-19 recovery road map to improve their margins. Help them out.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: I would like to start by understanding about the client’s textile business, their location of operations. What margins they are looking at and how the same have been in the past. By when they want to achieve this target and if there is any budgetary constraint. Also, I want to understand about the industry and the present competition.

I: In the textile industry there are 4 major steps:

a. Getting the fiber, cotton, or polyester.
b. Spinning fiber into yarn.
c. Weaving or Knitting.
d. Garment Manufacturing.

The client is in the 2nd step. They have 1000+ SKU's with plants in Europe, South East Asia, and India. They ship to 60 countries globally. They were looking at a 7-8% EBIDTA margin by 2021 or asap and no such budgetary constraints. The industry is extremely competitive with a lot of players.

C: Since we want to improve our earnings, I want to focus both on how we can increase our revenue and reduce our costs. Is there any particular bucket I should start with?

I: You can start with revenues.

C: I want to understand how the quantity of production has changed from pre Covid-19 to post Covid-19 and if we were able to sell our produce.

I: Initially the quantity had dropped but now it has been restored to pre Covid-19 levels. We are operating at full capacity now so a lot cannot be done on this front.

C: I want to understand about the pricing and how it fared against competitors.

I: Because of a lot of competition there was a lot of undercutting and the client had to reduce prices to sell.

C: I would look at some methods to improve our revenues. For instance, out of the 1000+ SKU got to know all do not sell well, so the focus can be on the ones that do sell well. For some SKU’s, the client was known well in the market and had an advantage over competitors so it could establish itself more in those areas. It could also enter long term contracts with the weavers so that price-cutting would not be required to be able to sell.

(The interviewer was very satisfied and stopped me midway. Asked to focus on the next bucket.)

The major cost buckets starting from raw materials, inbound logistics, plant related costs (labor, machinery, utility etc.) outbound logistics and any storage costs.

I: Due to paucity of time, choose any 2 buckets myself and analyze them further.

C: I would like to choose transportation and plant because I feel after Covid-19 this was an area which could be focused on first.

(I Suggested methods on labor management, analyzed the wage structure as well. Also spoke about ensuring that while transportation the most optimal routes were chosen in terms of time and costs. Was more of a discussion with the interviewer.)